American Gothic (1987) Poster

Parents Guide

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Certification

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Certification

Sex & Nudity

  • Inbreeding is suggested, as well as that Fanny's "baby" may have been fathered by a brother of hers.
  • A man implies that he wants to have sex with his girlfriend in the same bed. Another character becomes upset by this, particularly their unmarried status, asking if they are "hitched" and referring to sex as "devil's play".
  • A man makes a brief, vulgar joke upon watching his friends going fishing that he "only dives for muff, sweetheart. You catch it, I'll cook it".
  • Pregnancy is briefly discussed, although not in particularly explicit terms.
  • A character climbs atop another character in a bed, petting his hair and running her hands over his face. She says "I want him", and earlier-on had been seen peeping in at this character kissing his girlfriend.
  • Incest is implied between two characters during an exchange of words.
  • A man tries to pin down and rape a woman, killing her in the process. He then proceeds by ripping open her jumpsuit, revealing her bra and panties. The man rips off the panties (no nudity), starts to smell her breasts, and pulls down his pants (again, no visible nudity). The scene ends here, but necrophilia is later implied.

Violence & Gore

  • A man is bent over by another man and beaten with a wooden rod of some sort, while other characters surround him and chant. The man doing the beating verbally shouts the word "spank!" over and over again.
  • Two somewhat graphic references to infant death; in one case, a child is said to have drowned. This is never seen onscreen, however the child's mother screams and cries in flashbacks. Another case portrays onscreen the charred remains of what is said to be a "baby" (a mummified corpse of an infant).
  • A character slips off a rock, hits her head, and falls into the ocean; knocked out. But is later rescued by her friend and survives.
  • A man is killed when the swing he's riding gets cut from it's ropes and careens off a cliff. Someone later discovers his corpse; beaten and bloodied from the fall.
  • A woman gets harassed by the "children" who grab at her and force her to jump rope. They then tie her up with the large rope and she's later discovered by someone, dead and hanging from a limb by the rope.
  • A man is impaled through the eye with a spear of a statue, as he stumbles out a door; blood dripping from his eye, he collapses on the floor and is stabbed (offscreen) by a woman with knitting needles.
  • We see a man's corpse inside a boat with a hatchet in its face, with blood dripping down.
  • A character shoots the flare gun at two men, but misses, however it explodes rather violently upon impact
  • Two men douse the man in the boat with gasoline and send it off into the ocean, igniting it. The man's body catches fire and eventually, the whole boat explodes
  • Two characters discover the corpse of the man killed by the fall propped up in a room, one is caught by a man, and during a struggle where he tries to rape her, is killed when the man accidentally grabs her head and breaks her neck.
  • A man discovers the woman's bloody corpse and we see him (offscreen) get speared in the head with a statue by the killer.

Profanity

  • A few uses of "God", "goddamn it", "God almighty", "devil", "Satan", "Jesus Christ" and similar religious expletives.
  • A few sexual comments/lewd terms, including "muff" and "devil's play".
  • One scene in particular features an old man shouting out the word "bullshit" a number of times.
  • Mild language only, including "shit", and "damn" .

Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking

  • Lynn lights a cigarette and starts smoking at the dinner table, much to the disapproval of Ma and Pa who kick her out of the house. She's later seen smoking outside and once again while walking in the woods.

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • Some scenes under violence can be considered frightening, and the entire theme about a family kept mentally backwards in the 1920s and the parents keeping their adult children mentally adolescent may be disturbing to some.
  • Cynthia has vivid flashbacks about her baby's death; it is implied that she drowned while taking a bath.
  • A character takes another down to see her baby; revealing a mummified child's corpse and asks her if she wants to kiss it, to which she faints.
  • We see a brief flashback to one of the murders that occurs in the film which may make some jump.
  • Fanny grabs a hatchet and raises it, as if she is about to kill Cynthia, but instead buries it in the ground to play ring toss.

Spoilers

The Parents Guide items below may give away important plot points.

Violence & Gore

  • We see corpses, both fresh and in varying states of decay in a basement.
  • A character tries to grab a mummified baby from another character, during a struggle, it breaks apart and in rage, the woman bludgeons the other to death with a washbin as we see blood slowly drip down her face until she collapses.
  • The killer grabs knitting needles that a woman is using and stabs her in the neck and chest.
  • A man discovers the last woman's corpse, still bleeding, and gets stabbed (offscreen) in the neck with a sickle by the killer.
  • A man slowly discovers all the corpses in the house, and ultimately gets shot in the back by the killer.

See also

Taglines | Plot Summary | Synopsis | Plot Keywords


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